A classic sorting code-golf question

Question

This is a code-golf question.

Input

A list of non-negative integers in whatever format is the most convenient.

Output

The same list in sorted order in whatever format is the most convenient.

Restriction

• Your code must run in O(n log n) time in the worst case where nis the number of integers in the input. This means that randomized quicksort is out for example. However there are many many other options to choose from.
• Don't use any sorting library/function/similar. Also don't use anything that does most of the sorting work for you like a heap library. Basically, whatever you implement, implement it from scratch.

You can define a function if you like but then please show an example of it in a full program actually working. It should run successfully and quickly on all the test cases below.

Test cases

In: [9, 8, 3, 2, 4, 6, 5, 1, 7, 0]
Out:[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

In: [72, 59, 95, 68, 84]
Out:[59, 68, 72, 84, 95]

In: [2, 2, 1, 9, 3, 7, 4, 1, 6, 7]
Out:[1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 7, 9]

In: [2397725, 1925225, 3304534, 7806949, 4487711, 8337622, 2276714, 3088926, 4274324,  667269]
Out:[667269,1925225, 2276714, 2397725,3088926, 3304534, 4274324, 4487711, 7806949, 8337622]

Your answers

Please state the sorting algorithm you have implemented and the length of your solution in the title of your answer.

O(n log n) time sorting algorithms

There are many O(n log n) time algorithms in existence. This table has a list of some of them.

Answer 1

Haskell, 87 80 89

s%[]=s
(x:a)%q|x<=q!!0=x:a%q
p%q=q%p
j(x:y:s)=x%y:j s
j a=a
r[x]=x
r s=r$j s
s=r.map(:[])

This is merge sort, implemented from the bottom up. first we package every element into it's own list, and then merge them two-by-two, and again merge them two-by-two, until we're left with one list.

(%) is the merge function
j merges pairs in a list of lists
r merges a complete list of lists
s is the sorting function.

Usage: Run an interpreter, and enter s [3,5,2,6,7].

Edit: the way I was merging things before wasn't the right order, So to fix it I needed 9 more characters.

Answer 2

JavaScript (ES6), 195 193 191 189 188 186 183 182 179 174 172 bytes

This is a heapsort implementation. I expect someone to come up with a shorter mergesort, but I like this one :P

Update: R mergesort beaten. Ruby up next :D

S=l=>{e=l.length
W=(a,b)=>[l[a],l[b]]=[l[b],l[a]]
D=s=>{for(;(c=s*2+1)<e;s=r<s?s:e)s=l[r=s]<l[c]?c:s,W(r,s=++c<e&&l[s]<l[c]?c:s)}
for(s=e>>1;s;)D(--s)
for(;--e;D(0))W(0,e)}

Test (Firefox)

S=l=>{e=l.length
W=(a,b)=>[l[a],l[b]]=[l[b],l[a]]
D=s=>{for(;(c=s*2+1)<e;s=r<s?s:e)s=l[r=s]<l[c]?c:s,W(r,s=++c<e&&l[s]<l[c]?c:s)}
for(s=e>>1;s;)D(--s)
for(;--e;D(0))W(0,e)}

document.querySelector('#d').addEventListener("click",function(){a=JSON.parse(document.querySelector('#a').value);S(a);document.querySelector('#b').innerHTML=JSON.stringify(a)});

<textarea id="a">[9,4,1,2,7,3,5,8,6,10]</textarea><br><button id="d">Sort</button><br><pre id="b"></pre>

Answer 3

Python3, 132 bytes

def S(l):
 if len(l)<2:return l
 a,b,o=S(l[::2]),S(l[1::2]),[]
 while a and b:o.append([a,b][a[-1]<b[-1]].pop())
 return a+b+o[::-1]

Simple mergesort. Lots of bytes were spent to make sure this actually runs in O(n log n), if only the algorithm, but not the implementation needs to be O(n log n), this can be shortened:

Python3, 99 bytes

def m(a,b):
 while a+b:yield[a,b][a<b].pop(0)
S=lambda l:l[1:]and list(m(S(l[::2]),S(l[1::2])))or l

This is not O(n log n) because .pop(0) is O(n), making the merge function O(n^2). But this is fairly artificial, as .pop(0) could easily have been O(1).

Answer 4

Jelly, 29 bytes, merge sort

Like orlp’s Python answer, this uses list.pop(0) under the hood, which is O(n), but the implementation is formally O(n log n).

ṛð>ṛḢð¡Ḣ;ñ
ç;ȧ?
s2Z߀ç/µL>1µ¡

Try it here.

Explanation

               Define f(x, y):    (merge helper)
                 Implicitly store x in α.
ṛ    ð¡          Replace it with y this many times:
 ð>ṛḢ              (x > y)[0].
       Ḣ         Pop the first element off that list (either x or y).
        ;ñ       Append it to g(x, y).

               Define g(x, y):    (merge)
  ȧ?             If x and y are non-empty:
ç                  Return f(x, y)
                 Else:
 ;                 Return concat(x, y).

               Define main(z):    (merge sort)
       µL>1µ¡    Repeat (len(z) > 1) times:
s2                 Split z in chunks of length two.   [[9, 7], [1, 3], [2, 8]]
  Z                Transpose the resulting array.     [[9, 1, 2], [7, 3, 8]]
   ߀              Apply main() recursively to each.  [[1, 2, 9], [3, 7, 8]]
     ç/            Apply g on these two elements.     [1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9]

Answer 5

Julia, 166 bytes

m(a,b,j=1,k=1,L=endof)=[(j<=L(a)&&k<=L(b)&&a[j]<b[k])||k>L(b)?a[(j+=1)-1]:b[(k+=1)-1]for i=1:L([a;b])]
M(x,n=endof(x))=n>1?m(M(x[1:(q=ceil(Int,n÷2))]),M(x[q+1:n])):x

The primary function is called M and it calls a helper function m. It uses merge sort, which has O(n log n) as its worst case complexity.

Example use:

x = [9, 8, 3, 2, 4, 6, 5, 1, 7, 0]
println(M(x))              # prints [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
println(M(x) == sort(x))   # prints true

Ungolfed:

function m(a, b, i=1, k=1, L=endof)
    return [(j <= L(a) && k <= L(b) && a[j] < b[k]) || k > L(b) ?
            a[(j+=1)-1] : b[(k+=1)-1] for i = 1:L([a; b])]
end

function M(x, n=endof(x))
    q = ceil(Int, n÷2)
    return n > 1 ? m(M(x[1:q]), M([q+1:n])) : x
end

Answer 6

R, 181 bytes, Mergesort

L=length;s=function(S)if(L(S)<2){S}else{h=1:(L(S)/2);A=s(S[h]);B=s(S[-h]);Z=c();if(A[L(A)]>B[1])while(L(A)&L(B))if(A[1]<B[1]){Z=c(Z,A[1]);A=A[-1]}else{Z=c(Z,B[1]);B=B[-1]};c(Z,A,B)}

Indented, with newlines:

L=length
s=function(S)
    if(L(S)<2){
        S
    }else{
        h=1:(L(S)/2)
        A=s(S[h])
        B=s(S[-h])
        Z=c()
        if(A[L(A)]>B[1])
#Merge helper function incorporated from here ...
            while(L(A)&L(B))
                if(A[1]<B[1]){
                    Z=c(Z,A[1])
                    A=A[-1]
                }else{
                    Z=c(Z,B[1])
                    B=B[-1]
                }
#...to here. Following line both finishes merge function and handles 'else' case:
        c(Z,A,B)
    }

Test cases:

> L=length;s=function(S)if(L(S)<2){S}else{h=1:(L(S)/2);A=s(S[h]);B=s(S[-h]);Z=c();if(A[L(A)]>B[1])while(L(A)&L(B))if(A[1]<B[1]){Z=c(Z,A[1]);A=A[-1]}else{Z=c(Z,B[1]);B=B[-1]};c(Z,A,B)}
> s(c(2397725, 1925225, 3304534, 7806949, 4487711, 8337622, 2276714, 3088926, 4274324,  667269))
 [1]  667269 1925225 2276714 2397725 3088926 3304534 4274324 4487711 7806949 8337622
> s(c(2, 2, 1, 9, 3, 7, 4, 1, 6, 7))
 [1] 1 1 2 2 3 4 6 7 7 9
> s(c(72, 59, 95, 68, 84))
 [1] 59 68 72 84 95
> s(c(9, 8, 3, 2, 4, 6, 5, 1, 7, 0))
 [1] 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Answer 7

Scala, 243 Byte function (315 Bytes stand-alone app), Mergesort

This answer is intended to be a function, but can be expanded to be a stand-alone application.

Function-only (243 bytes):

object G{
type S=Stream[Int]
def m(f:(S,S)):S=f match{
case(x#::a,b@(y#::_))if x<=y=>x#::m(a,b)
case(a,y#::b)=>y#::m(a,b)
case(a,Empty)=>a
case(_,b)=>b}
def s(a:S):S=if(a.length>1)((q:S,w:S)=>m(s(q),s(w))).tupled(a.splitAt(a.length/2))else a
}

Stand-alone application(315 bytes):

object G extends App{
type S=Stream[Int]
def m(f:(S,S)):S=f match{
case(x#::a,b@(y#::_))if x<=y=>x#::m(a,b)
case(a,y#::b)=>y#::m(a,b)
case(a,Empty)=>a
case(_,b)=>b}
def s(a:S):S=if(a.length>1)((q:S,w:S)=>m(s(q),s(w))).tupled(a.splitAt(a.length/2))else a
println(s(args(0).split(",").map(_.toInt).toStream).toList)
}

Usage:

Function: G.s(List(**[Paste your array here]**).toStream).toList

Application: sbt "run **[Paste your array here]**"

Example Input:

scala> G.s(List(10,2,120,1,8,3).toStream).toList

(OR)

$ sbt "run 5423,123,24,563,65,2,3,764"

Output:

res1: List[Int] = List(1, 2, 3, 8, 10, 120)

OR

List(2, 3, 24, 65, 123, 563, 764, 5423)

Constraints & considerations:

• Requires scalaz (very common library, not used for sorting here)
• Is 100% functional (nothing mutable!)

Attribution:

• Merge implementation (m() function) inspired by this answer: https://codereview.stackexchange.com/a/21590/28856

Answer 8

Ruby, 167 bytes

Golfed merge sort algorithm, which has worst-case O(n log n)

f=->x{m=->a,b{i,j,l,y,z=0,0,[],a.size,b.size
while i<y&&j<z
c=a[i]<b[j]
l<<(c ?a[i]:b[j])
c ?i+=1:j+=1
end
l+=a[i,y]+b[j,z]}
l=x.size
l>1?m[f[x[0,l/2]],f[x[l/2,l]]]:x}

Test it here!

To test, copy and paste the code into the window, and add puts f[x] at the bottom, where x is an array with the input. (Make sure you select Ruby as the language, of course) For example, puts f[[2, 2, 1, 9, 3, 7, 4, 1, 6, 7]]

Answer 9

Ruby, 297 bytes

Merge sort. Complete program, instead of a function. Requires two arguments at runtime: input file and output file, each with one element per line.

if $0==__FILE__;v=open(ARGV[0]).readlines.map{|e|e.to_i}.map{|e|[e]};v=v.each_slice(2).map{|e|a,b,r=e[0],e[1],[];while true;if(!a)||a.empty?;r+=b;break;end;if(!b)||b.empty?;r+=a;break;end;r<<(a[0]<b[0]?a:b).shift;end;r}while v.size>1;open(ARGV[1],"w"){|f|f.puts(v[0].join("\n"))if !v.empty?};end